Goal

Overarching goal: Discovering the listeners we can be
1. Listening in virtue theory
We are in an "information age", but we lack corresponding character virtues to navigate the particular dilemmas these technological developments have brought about. Listening is to information what generosity is to wealth. We need to discover the place of good listening among the character virtues.
2. Listening and the free market of ideas
Listening transforms information into relationships and vice-versa. Milton Friedman stated, "We want a free market in ideas, so that ideas get a chance to win majority or near-unanimous acceptance, even if initially held only by a few." We need to study listening's potential for mastering the move from information to society-wide understanding and coordination.
3. Civic listening and social trust
Is it possible to change someone's mind and the way they speak without saying anything - just by listening well? Might civic listeners be the ingredient to heal social divisions? We need to empirically investigate the effects on societal trust and trustworthiness of a civic culture of listening.

Opportunity

In an increasingly polarised world, our speech seems to be pulling us further and further apart. Social media form echo chambers as algorithms pre-select content to fit with users' fears. Growth in hate speech, fake news and computational propaganda threaten the basis to democratic life. What can defend us? Common answers seek to establish what is right or wrong through hate speech law or by developing protections against fake news. But speech is irreducibly two-way: it is about speaking and it is also about listening. Strengthening the listening component to the same degree as speech will help heal our world.

Roadblocks

Benefits to listening have been identified in psychological therapy. This is a roadblock for the goal of "discovering the listeners we can be" because it inclines one to understand listening as a specialist, perhaps professional activity, and one-way (mainly one person the designated speaker, the other the designated listener). What we're interested in here instead is the virtue-based habits of a good listener in society. This is about our social nature and how it generates a two-way art of listening through networked relationships, leading at times to large-scale human coordination.

Breakthroughs Needed

To overcome this roadblock, it needs to be clear from the outset that we are not considering listening as a therapeutic solution to individual mental difficulties, such as anxiety or depression. Rather, the focus is on the societal transformation that can be brought about by good listening. In line with the three goals listed above, good listening is analysed as 1) virtuous, 2) a tool for the market of ideas, and 3) a civic need.
To help achieve a climate of breakthroughs, there is need for an "early success" of empirically demonstrating society-wide benefits to good listening. That will make clear how the scope of inquiry differs from traditional research into listening in therapy, because the researchers are tackling head-on problems associated with societal discoordination. Early demonstration can come, for example, in the form of experimental social science research into the extent to which good listening: i) spreads more good listening, ii) causes good speech, and/or iii) increases social trust and trustworthiness. For example, experimentally deploying the "trust game" to measure the trust effects of feeling listened to, or deploying an RCT to see if exposure to good listening has a ripple effect.

Key Indicators of Success

Perhaps more clear-cut to give key indicators of failure:
3 year
- "Good will" gestures that include the theme of listening, but with no meaningful difference as compared to love/empathy/inclusion.
- Early empirical work yields no meaningful results.
5 year
- No interest from industry in technological experiments to accelerate capacities to listen well relationally.
- No evaluation of digital technologies for the extent to which they help or hinder society's capacity to listen.
10 year
- Rejection of attempts to integrate virtue theory with social network analysis.
- No incorporation of insights into teaching curricular in the social sciences.

Additional Information

5 collaborators:
Omowumi Ogunyemi, Pan-Atlantic University (specialist on the "narrative self")
Molly Scudder, Purdue University (pioneer of "listening act theory")
Tom Simpson, University of Oxford (specialist on social trust)
Nancy Snow, University of Oklahoma (specialist on virtue theory)
Filippo Trevisan, American University (specialist on digital technologies and listening to persons with disabilities)

5 references:
Dominic Burbidge, Andrew Briggs & Michael Reiss, 'Citizenship in a Networked Age' (2020 report).
Alasdair MacIntyre, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Hanna Reinikainen, Jaana T. Kari & Vilma Luoma-aho, 'Generation Z and Organizational Listening on Social Media'. Media and Communication, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.2772
Molly Scudder, Beyond Empathy and Inclusion: The Challenge of Listening in Democratic Deliberation (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Margaret C. Stewart & Christa L. Arnold, 'Defining Social Listening: Recognizing an Emerging Dimension of Listening'. International Journal of Listening, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2017.1330656